Playing in the Sun

Luna did a great job on Wednesday night at class. We almost made it through the night without messing up (not that errors are bad! But it's nice for things to go so well!). The sticking point was handling a serpentine without a side change. I was surprised we had trouble, this is something we practice fairly often (simple set up with many handling options!).

The very interesting part was my 'incorret' handling resulted in the correct response from my dog, but our first attempt at the 'correct' handling had an incorrect response from Luna. I had been using the outside hand to cue the last jump and 'force' a turn. With the inside hand, I was further behind her (turning cue) and that apparently over-rode the 'do-not-change-side' cue of the inside hand. We repeated it again, inside hand but I moved faster and all was well.

We did this at home last night without a problem. Blaze struggled! It was hard for him to collect to take the second jump...he would skip ahead to the third or a very off course tunnel. He's not doing very well now that he's off his medication and we're waiting for another vet appointment before looking at our options again. The toy pile on the barn roof was very frustrating to him and he spent a long time making impossible attempts to access the toys. I had to take him inside so he could settle down.

Griffin is great as always. We're still focusing on duration to heeling and stays and then visiting new places. I've been good this week. We stopped in town to work on our way home from Luna's agility class and now that the rain has stopped for a few days, we can get out more.

On our camp website, check out the 'Resources' tab and the piece about how to make a tug toy. It's one of the 'craft' activities for camp and a topic that came up at the Ohio 4-H Teen Conference. Tug toys are great for training: